In Transition: Young Adult Literature and Transgender Representation

An exploration of early and contemporary trans narratives in YA literature that discusses a variety of topics and concerns regarding marketing, memoirs, and more. Issues investigated include the prioritization of the education and comfort of cisgender readers over the inclusion of trans audience members, the unfortunate tendency of authors to problematize trans identity, and speculative fiction as a reliable vehicle for trans narratives. A section highlighting the significance of digital storytelling as disseminated by online trans content creators is relevant but awkwardly placed in the larger narrative. Peritextual content is highly focused upon but is not adequately defined for readers. Corbett additionally places high importance in overtly naming a character’s trans identity to ensure findability for researchers, but in doing so fails to sufficiently acknowledge the nuances that exist in the large expanses of the queer experience. As trans narratives continue to be a primary target for censors, the impact of these challenges on publication and marketing is barely discussed. Overall, this text has value for research purposes but lacks a distinctive voice and readability. Extensive notes, a bibliography, and an index are provided.